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.... Of Cabbages & Kings

04th February 2012
What’s this place called?

Grand Riviere , Dennery; Grand Riviere, Gros Islet; Lapointe, Micoud; Lapointe, Dennery; Lapointe, Choiseul. Have you ever noticed how many places in St. Lucia bear the same name? Some names are repeated six or seven times around the country.

What could have caused this? Lack of imagination? Limited vocabulary? From the sound of the names, we owe this redundancy to the French. Did the French have a tendency to stammer? Maybe listen to echoes too much? I’ll try to put forward a theory or two for the reason why this repetition of names exists around St. Lucia.

Firstly, remember that St. Lucia changed hands fourteen times. Which means that the French conquered, landed and occupied seven times.

Now, let’s suppose that some French fellow, whose official job was the naming of spots in various conquered countries, had a favourite name, like Bellevue. First time that they occupy, he’s strolling around Vieux Fort, sees an area, says: “Let’s call this Bellevue”. OK, so far, so good. They lose the next battle, flee the island, then win and come back.

This time, he’s liming a little south of Dennery, doing some hunting. A friend asks him, “What do we call this area?” The guy forgets that he used Bellevue near Vieux Fort five years ago, and, “Bellevue, my favourite name,” he says.

Eight years later, after having lost and won a couple of battles again, he’s back, and cooling his toes in a river near Grace. Just chilling out, as they say. Looks around, likes what he sees, and says to the lady who’s picnicking with him, “You know, I’ve got a favourite name, which I don’t think I’ve ever used on this island. Let’s call this place “”Bellevue’”. You get the picture.
 
 
Second theory: maybe it was a good battle plan---to confuse the enemy. If they intercept your messages, and learn that your army is camped in Grand Riviere, well, all their generals can do is sit around, scratch their heads, and ask each other, “Yeah, Grand Riviere. But Grand Riviere where?” By the time that they confusedly go off in the wrong direction, say towards Grand Riviere near Gros Islet, you sneak up behind them from Grand Riviere near Dennery and Wham! Chalk up another victory for your side Brilliant strategy!

Next theory: now this is what I suspect really happened. In the old days, these European fellows didn’t really know what cane juice could do to you, when distilled; and falling onto fields of the stuff, they went wild. They were probably drunk every day. That white rum don’t play, you know.

So our official name-giver names Lapointe, Choiseul, considers that that’s a good day’s work well done, gets down into the white rum cask and gives it some licks.

He drinks himself to sleep, his friends cannot wake him up, so they transport him to his next post, just north of Dennery. He wakes up bleary-eyed next morning, doesn’t realize that he’s been moved … and records that place where he now is, as Lapointe. So now you have Lapointe, Dennery and so on, and so on.
Anyhow, those are my theories. You have any better, you write them up. I’ll be happy to read them while I’m relaxing at my friend Nigel in Ti Rocher, near Bocage. Or is that Ti Rocher, near Micoud?

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